


you know we don't play (we're the new kids on the block and we're here to stay)

by earthandsky



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, bellarke AU, transfer students
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 18:32:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4635834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earthandsky/pseuds/earthandsky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Clarke meets Bellamy Blake for the first time, he’s naked and standing in the middle of the hallway.</p><p>Bellamy/Clarke college transfer students AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	you know we don't play (we're the new kids on the block and we're here to stay)

* * *

 

 

When Clarke meets Bellamy Blake for the first time, he’s naked and standing in the middle of the hallway.

Well, okay – he has a towel. A single towel wrapped around his waist, short and clinging to him, and Clarke nearly drops her laundry basket on the floor when she sees him standing there, dark curls wet and pressed to his forehead, an expression on his face somewhere between resigned and embarrassed. Clarke’s so shocked that she barely registers the fact that he’s, well, probably the most gorgeous man she’s ever seen (she registers it a _little_ ), and once she gets a grip on her laundry she greets him with an articulate: “Uh.”

The guy scowls a little bit, but his face is turning pink, and Clarke tries very hard not to laugh, because that would be extremely rude.

“Yeah, I know. Look, you’re the fourth person to walk by this morning, so please, just – spare me.” His voice sounds gruff, but his tone lacks the vehemence that his words suggest, and his face turns a bit pinker as he glances down at Clarke’s laundry basket, then quickly looks away. Clarke follows his gaze and sees that, right at the top of her laundry basket, is one of her bras (a black, lacy one, _obviously_ , because what else would it be when she’s standing in the middle of her dorm with a naked stranger) and she quickly shuffles the basket to her other side, her own face turning a bit pink.

Clarke sighs, and offers him a gentle, “I’m guessing you got locked out while you were showering, huh?”

Bellamy glances back at her, looking like he’s contemplating making some sort of snide comment, but seems to think better of it and nods. “My roommate has a seminar this morning, and if I call campus safety they’ll charge me twenty bucks,” he admits, crossing his arms a little. (Clarke definitely does _not_ stare).

Clarke doesn’t know Bellamy well at all, really – she’s maybe passed by him in the hallway before, and she recognizes him, dimly, from Facebook, so she knows his name, but that’s about it. And, while she hasn’t been in this exact situation before, she’s imagined enough nightmare scenarios to know that this would fucking _suck_. And that’s her justification for asking:

“Do…? I mean. Do you want to hang out in my room until he gets back?” Bellamy looks at her, surprised, and she rushes on. “I’ve got some sweatpants that will probably fit you, and, well. It’s better than standing in the hallway like...this.” She gestures vaguely at his towel, and his lips quirk up just a bit.

“I...that would be great, actually. Yeah – thanks.” He smiles a bit more openly now, and she leads him towards her room. “Clarke, right? I’m Bellamy.”

She turns back towards him and smiles, opening the door to her room. “Nice to meet you. Now, put on some clothes.”

He laughs as she throws a pair of sweatpants and a shirt at his face, and blushes a little when she leaves the room, saying something about forgetting her laundry detergent but clearly wanting to give him privacy to change.

When Clarke returns ten minutes later, knocking cautiously before cracking open the door, she sees Bellamy in her tshirt, snug against his chest, her sweatpants riding low on his hips, with his towel wrapped around his shoulders. He’s sitting on her desk chair, his brow furrowed with his gaze directed towards some of the prints on her wall.

“Whose are these?” He asks, pointing towards the wall, a bead of water falling into his eyes.

Clarke sits on her bed, giving him an amused glance. “Mine.”

Bellamy rolls his eyes. “Well, duh. I mean, who made them?”

Clarke raises an eyebrow. “Me.”

Bellamy’s eyebrows shoot up, and he glances back to the wall, then towards Clarke. “You – wow. That’s – you’re. You’re really good.”

Clarke laughs, unable to help the grin. “Thanks.”

“No, like – ” Bellamy makes a noise of frustration, ruffling his hair in a motion that sprays Clarke with a couple of water droplets. “Really good. Holy shit.”

Clarke feels her face getting a little hotter, so she walks over to the desk and pulls out two video game controllers. He manages to look even more surprised, and she laughs, shoving one into his hands.

“Wanna play Mario Kart?”

His look of surprise fades after a moment and shifts into a smile that lights up his whole face. Clarke’s mind immediately goes blank except for the thought: _oh no._

—

Bellamy is a formidable opponent, but after an hour or so of laughing and cursing at each other, Bellamy’s roommate (a quiet, handsome guy named Nathan but who Bellamy only calls ‘Miller’) is knocking at the door, bursting into laughter when he sees Bellamy sitting in Clarke’s sweatpants and too-small tshirt that says “Alpha Cheerleading Camp” printed in bold letters across the front. But Bellamy just rolls his eyes and huffs, “I’d be an awesome cheerleader, Miller, my upper body strength is _amazing_ ,” and Clarke feels something warm and constricting in her chest that she’s at least fifty percent sure is not a medical condition.

But, this is a big school, and Clarke’s learned by now that crossing paths with someone once doesn’t mean that she’ll see them again that semester. By the next day, she’s already resigned herself to the fact that she probably won’t bump into him, and is debating whether or not she should just muster up some courage and knock on his door (he’s on her hall, Jesus) when she hears a knock at her own door and opens it to see Bellamy, smiling openly at her with the clothes she lent him folded up and in his arms.

“Wanna grab lunch at the caf?” he asks, handing over the clothes before she can say anything, and she immediately grins back and throws the clothes he brought onto the bed (ignoring his “ _Hey_ , I _folded_ those!”), grabbing her key to lock her door behind her.

––

Lunch becomes a regular thing, somehow. Clarke has an 11am class and Bellamy has a 2pm, so every day they meet at the same table in the dining hall and eat together. Sometimes, Bellamy brings Miller and Miller’s boyfriend Monty, sometimes Clarke brings Lincoln, from her art classes, or Raven, who is also in her 11am class on female political leaders post-World War II.

But, Clarke and Bellamy are the only staples at the table – they’re there every day. Bellamy usually gets there a couple minutes before Clarke to claim the table, so every time Clarke leaves her class, feeling dead on her feet, she can count on a _zing_ of energy to run through her body when she walks through the doors of the servery and sees Bellamy glancing around the room, trying to appear nonchalant as he looks around for her. (And failing miserably.)

Clarke quickly learns a lot about Bellamy, just in what sorts of things he smiles at and what he doesn’t. She learns he has a sister named Octavia, who he adores, and that when his phone buzzes, it’s almost always her. When he sees Clarke ignore a call from her mom with a sad expression on her face and a bit of a sigh as she lets it go to voicemail, he gets very quiet, and she learns that his own mother isn’t around anymore. She tells him about her father, and for a minute, everything gets quiet until he reaches for her hand, giving it a light squeeze.

(Clarke doesn’t even think to blush about it until later, when she’s alone in her room, and she realizes that she’s daydreaming, imagining the weight of his hand in hers.)

Both of them are transfer students – Clarke, from an Ivy (her mother’s alma mater -- she strong-armed Clarke into enrolling there, even though Clarke _knew_ she would hate it), and Bellamy from the Naval Academy, out east. Bellamy had liked it there well enough, but when Clarke pressed him further he sheepishly admitted that he had a little bit of trouble following orders. “Plus, they didn’t have a classics program,” he said a half-breath later, his ears turning red at the tips. “And their history program was kind of Western-centric.”

Clarke is pretty sure it should be illegal to feel this endeared, amused, and attracted to someone all at once.

“That’s called a crush, dumbass,” Wells says over Skype one day, pulling off his sweat-soaked Princeton t-shirt. He has a habit of skyping her right after lacrosse practice, because if he showers right away it makes his muscles cramp, or some weird athlete shit that Clarke is almost positive is made up.

“It’s – we’re – I mean. He’s – “ Clarke sputters, her face turning bright red because, _duh_ , she has a crush on him and she isn’t even denying it to herself anymore. But she hasn’t said it out loud yet, she hasn’t told anyone, because she’s pretty sure that they’re just friends. And even more than that, Bellamy’s really her _closest_ friend at this school and she just. Doesn't want to mess that up.

Wells face immediately loses its teasing expression, and he looks at Clarke with so much sympathy that she feels her chest constrict again --  this time in a painful way. “Oh, Clarke…” he says, quietly. “You really like him, don’t you?”

Clarke bites at her lip and is about to say something when Bellamy knocks three times on the cracked door and pushes it open, carrying a plate of cookies in his hands. He’s smiling. “Hey, Clarke, my sister just sent me these and – oh.” His smile slips and falters for a second when he looks up and sees the computer screen. “I didn’t realize that – shit. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay!” Clarke squeaks, thanking every possible deity that he didn’t seem to have heard any part of the conversation.

Bellamy manages a weak smile, and sets the plate on her dresser. “I’ll just, uh – see you later.” He practically runs out of the room.

Clarke groans, and slides her face into her hands, and when she looks up, Wells is just staring at her with an amused expression.

“He’s into you,” he declares, wrapping a towel around his shoulders.

“What?” Clarke lifts her head up, startled. “Wh –”

“Gotta shower, bye!” The screen goes black and Clarke’s staring at her computer, wide-eyed, her heart racing. _No way_ , she decides. _That’s totally not possible_. She looks back over at the cookies he’d left on her dresser. Chocolate chip, with a sticky note still attached to the plate. Clarke walks over to examine it, squinting. ' _Love u, nerd. --O'_. Clarke smiles, feeling her heart flutter a little as she imagines what Bellamy’s face must have looked like when he first got the package, and after a moment, she takes a deep breath, picks up the plate, and walks to the other side of the hall.

—

No one answers on the first knock, which is weird, because she sees a light on in the room. She can hear a faint muffled noise in the background, so she knocks again a little harder. Still no answer. She practically pounds on the door, and finally, it swings open.

Bellamy’s standing there, changed into pajamas, and his expression looks somewhere between sulky and disgruntled – kind of similar to how he looked when they first met. His laptop is left open on his bed and she can see the opening credits of “History Detectives.” She frowns. He had told her once that, after he failed a math test in high school, he marathoned the show until he felt better, and now it was his go-to pick me up. He had seemed fine, ten minutes ago.

“Uh, hey?” She says, going for casual, but her voice lilts a little, making her sound a little meek. She clears her throat. She can do this.

“Hey.” Bellamy’s expression is still a little sullen, but he smiles at her. “Sorry about that.”

Clarke frowns. “About what? You brought me cookies.”

Bellamy huffs out a laugh. “No, I – I didn’t realize you were skyping.”

“Oh,” Clarke shrugs. “It was just Wells. We talk every week.”

Clarke swears that Bellamy’s face sinks a little, but it only lasts a moment before his expression becomes something almost earnest, or apologetic. “Yeah, uh. It would be great to meet him sometime.”

Clarke smiles. He wants to meet her childhood best friend. This is a good sign, right? “He might visit towards the end of the semester, actually.”

“Great,” Bellamy says. Clarke can’t help but notice that he doesn’t sound particularly enthusiastic though, and she frowns again, opening her mouth to say something when he does the same. They glance at each other and both let out a nervous laugh, when Clarke gestures for him to go first.

Bellamy looks like he was concentrating, thinking very carefully about what to say. His brow furrows, and his expression takes on a quality of looking almost like he wishes the ground would swallow him up. “Look, I – I didn’t know that – I don’t...I don’t want you to think – ” He cuts himself off, frowning deeper, and Clarke feels her chest sinking. He knows. He knows that she likes him and he doesn’t feel the same way. Her mouth goes completely dry. Shit. But then he continues, “ – I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.”

Clarke stares at him. What? “What?” She says, dazed.

Bellamy huffs out a breath, then runs his fingers through his hair. “I didn’t – I didn’t know you had a boyfriend, and I don’t want you to think – I mean, I’ve been flirting with you so much and if I had known you were seeing someone I would have, I don’t know, kept it to myself and tried harder to get over it or _something_ – ”

Clarke’s brain started short-circuiting the second he mentioned _flirting_ and he was – he had something to “get over” and that meant – _holy shit_.

“I don’t have a boyfriend!” She blurts out, loud enough that the faint background sound of chattering in the other rooms in the hall goes silent for a moment, before it picks up again. Bellamy is staring at her.

“What?” He manages to croak out after a long moment. “But – Wells...you were. I mean – you looked…” Bellamy cuts himself off again, and looks at her, confused. “He didn’t have a shirt on.”

Clarke stares at him for a second, then bursts out into uncontrollable laughter. Bellamy scowls, but there’s no actual heat in it, and after Clarke calms down, she says, “He just came back from lacrosse practice! _Jesus_ , what, did you think we were gonna start having skype sex or something?”

Bellamy turns about three different shades of bright red, and he hesitates before saying. “I... _no_. Shut up.”

Clarke grins, feeling her heart swell with affection. “Bellamy. I don’t have a boyfriend.”

He’s still blushing, and she takes the opportunity to shove the cookie plate in his hands. “Here,” she says. “Put these on your desk.”

“Wh – huh?” He blinks at her.

“Just _do_ it,” she says, laughing.

“Why?” He’s still blushing, and she steps forward past him, taking the plate from his hands and putting it on his desk herself. He turns to face her, and she grins.

“Because,” she says, stepping closer to him. “I’m going to kiss you, and it would be a shame if we spilled them all on the floor.”

Bellamy looks up at her quickly, and his shocked expression melts into a slow, relieved, almost awestruck smile. “Nah, you aren’t.”

Clarke feels her stomach drop because, _oh god_ , did he not — ?

“Because,” he continues, in the same tone she had just used. “I’m going to kiss you first.”

And he steps forward and closes the gap between them, and suddenly his lips are pressing softly against hers and she’s _kissing_ him, over and over again, until she feels weak on her feet and has to grab onto his shoulders to steady herself and she _feels_ him smirk against her before his tongue swipes her bottom lip.

Her first semester isn’t over yet, but Clarke can already tell she likes this school _much_ better than the last one.


End file.
